[Announce] Moments Out Of Time Re-released
L. Ross Raszewski
A revised version of my 2001 game, Moments out of Time. I did a lot of work
Making this game, and it always bothered me that my own poor choice of
platform and a few bad decisions alienated so many players from taking the
Leap and finding out what it was all about. So this new version is in Glulx:
You can rest assured that (though it might take a little effort), any solid
Interpreter should be able to handle it. Thanks to an unfortunate hard-drive
Not working at a key moment, I've had to rebuild the game from the ground up.
Go try it out, please, even if you've already played: you might even
say that it's a whole new game.
Moments out of Time is the story of a time traveler, sent back to study the
way humans lived on the eve of the third world war -- it's also the story
of a human family, flawed in their many ways, trying to cope with the
increasing inevitability of the end of their world. It's a parable about
the way we see the world, with a lot of symbolism I only noticed well
after-the-fact.
Moments out of Time took second place in the 2001 rec.arts.int-fiction
competition.
It is available at http://streamdive.trenchcoatsoft.com/moments.r2.gblorb
and will shortly appear on the if-archive.
For historical purposes, I have also rereleased the original competition
version of the game, upgraded with cover art and metadata based on the Babel
initiative (http://babel.ifarchive.org).
I hope you enjoy.
Reiko
L. Ross Raszewski wrote:
> It gives me great pleasure to announce that, after five years, I'm releasing
> A revised version of my 2001 game, Moments out of Time. I did a lot of work
> Making this game, and it always bothered me that my own poor choice of
> platform and a few bad decisions alienated so many players from taking the
> Leap and finding out what it was all about. So this new version is in Glulx:
> You can rest assured that (though it might take a little effort), any solid
> Interpreter should be able to handle it. Thanks to an unfortunate hard-drive
> Not working at a key moment, I've had to rebuild the game from the ground up.
> Go try it out, please, even if you've already played: you might even
> say that it's a whole new game.
Err...is this a joke? Otherwise, why do your lines start with capital
letters that spell out "I AM LYING"?
~Reiko
TheR...@gmail.com
I kinda liked Moments Out Of Time, annoying bits of foul language aside
(had a bit of trouble getting into Photopia thanks to the trouble at
the beginning >_>), so I was *going* to download this until you pointed
that out...
Good God. Please someone be a good parser and disambiguate for us.
Reiko
TheR...@gmail.com wrote:
> I kinda liked Moments Out Of Time, annoying bits of foul language aside
> (had a bit of trouble getting into Photopia thanks to the trouble at
> the beginning >_>), so I was *going* to download this until you pointed
> that out...
>
> Good God. Please someone be a good parser and disambiguate for us.
I played the original version awhile ago, so I don't remember the
specifics too well. I'm not sure I even finished the whole thing. But I
downloaded this one, just to see, and it seems to run and everything.
The beginning doesn't sound like it's the same as before, either, but I
only took a glance at it and tried a couple actions to make sure it
worked. So it seems to be an actual game at least, but I would sure
like an explanation for the hidden message.
~Reiko
Emily Short
My (somewhat confused) impression is that there's quite a lot more
changed here than a mere "update" would suggest: possibly it's actually
a sequel or some kind of companion piece. But I didn't get very far
with the original game, so I can't offer much by way of specifics.
TheR...@gmail.com
I try to run it by double-clicking the .gblorb file, and both Glulxe
and Git tell me "This Blorb file does not contain an executable Glulx
chunk".
TheR...@gmail.com
TheR...@gmail.com
my piece here.
Typos and some underimplementations aside, this is awesome. ^_^ I kinda
miss the original theme music, but I like the new premise. I take it I
need to...
***SPOILERS***
...find Dante, create an 8% temporal distortion and then recall myself?
I got a kick out of the reference to Jigsaw in the original, but...Oh
My God! You've referenced The Journeyman Project in there! (And Doctor
Who, but Journeyman is by far the more amazing part.) I've played all
three and managed to find a copy of Pegasus Prime...too bad I don't own
a Mac to run it on. ^_^;
Anyway, for those who haven't caught on, "I AM LYING" is true here:
same name, same house, MUCH different storyline. This is some good
stuff so far, but you should play the original version to get the
entire picture.
Reiko
> My God! You've referenced The Journeyman Project in there! (And Doctor
> Who, but Journeyman is by far the more amazing part.) I've played all
> three and managed to find a copy of Pegasus Prime...too bad I don't own
> a Mac to run it on. ^_^;
I figured he was inspired by The Journeyman Project anyway. I mean, he
calls the organization the Temporal Sciences Commission. Temporal
Security Agency, anyone?
That's pretty cool though. I'll have to actually play it later.
~Reiko
TheR...@gmail.com
Somehow, it surprises me every time somebody else knows about
Journeyman. Sometimes it feels like I'm the only human alive who
remembers it. (You know, the guy who played Elliot Sinclair appeared on
X-Files, right? And Agent 3 was on Father Dowling Mysteries.)
Annoys the heck out of me how the PS1 version of Pegasus Prime was
Japan-only. >_<#
Anyways, let me point out one thing: you *MUST* play the original game
in order to figure out what to do here. Unfair? Yes, but the original
was still pretty good. You know how the original Crimson Room game
directs you to another website to find the safe combination? Sorta the
same thing here. Don't worry, it'll make perfect sense. Just make sure
to bring the chip or tool or whatever allowed you to detect temporal
anomalies and you'll find the key.
kpki...@gmail.com
> Err...is this a joke? Otherwise, why do your lines start with capital
> letters that spell out "I AM LYING"?
I bet you solved the Zork cyclops puzzle by saying "ODYSSEUS" rather
than putting him to sleep didn't you? :-)
Reiko
Err, what? I only vaguely remember what you're talking about (I played
Zork in grade school, and never managed to get all that far into any of
them), but it's very possible that I did just that. I don't even
remember how you would put him to sleep...
Well, anyway, I'll take that as a compliment? :D
~Reiko
kpki...@gmail.com
> Err, what? I only vaguely remember what you're talking about (I played
> Zork in grade school, and never managed to get all that far into any of
> them), but it's very possible that I did just that. I don't even
> remember how you would put him to sleep...
>
> Well, anyway, I'll take that as a compliment? :D
>
There were two ways to solve the cyclops puzzle (to get rid of him).
One was to feed him the hot pepper sandwich from the kitchen and then
to (quickly) give him the water. He went to sleep after that.
The better way (because it opened a passage back into the house) was to
say "ODYSSEUS", which you figured out by reading the black book. The
first letter in each sentence spelled it out.
That's why I mentioned it since you spotted the first letter in each
sentence in the post.
It was a complement. :-)
TheR...@gmail.com
I gotta play me some Zork again sometime. Without those pesky
walkthroughs.
While we're talking about obscure solutions, how *exactly* is the Bank
of Zork puzzle from the second game supposed to be solved? I remember
the puzzle but I don't remember any specifics, and the DM4 said that it
"has been understood by almost no one who solved it." (But I loved the
third game's time machine. ^_^)
Speaking of neat solutions: I loved how solving the "preview" game for
MOOT: Adventure Type required knowledge of the anomalies from the
original. Did you always have that explanation in mind for the
anomalies, or did you "retcon" them afterwards? And nice work on the
teaser trailer.
L. Ross Raszewski
As a far better IF author than myself would say, It's Intentional.
It's All Intentional.
Reiko
kpki...@gmail.com wrote:
> There were two ways to solve the cyclops puzzle (to get rid of him).
> One was to feed him the hot pepper sandwich from the kitchen and then
> to (quickly) give him the water. He went to sleep after that.
>
> The better way (because it opened a passage back into the house) was to
> say "ODYSSEUS", which you figured out by reading the black book. The
> first letter in each sentence spelled it out.
Huh, wow, I don't remember that at all. I must not have gotten that
far. It's a rare text adventure that I can figure out without hints or
whatever, and when I was playing Zork back in grade school, there was
no internet to get hints for any game you wanted, so I played as far as
I could before I got stuck, and then I probably gave up on it. I tried
the first three Zork games again a couple years ago and didn't get very
far on any of them, and didn't feel like going and looking for hints at
the time. So I've never actually finished any of the Zork games.
> That's why I mentioned it since you spotted the first letter in each
> sentence in the post.
>
> It was a complement. :-)
Hehe thanks. It was sort of an intuitive jump, really. I noticed that
the paragraph looked funny, and then I noticed that most of the lines
started with a capital letter, even in the middle of sentences, and
then I think I subconsciously saw the word "lying" vertically (I'm
pretty good at reading vertically because I can read Japanese), and
then I started consciously looking at it to figure out what was going
on.
I love how the original author of the post hasn't come back to make any
sort of comment on all the discussion his cryptic message caused. :)
~Reiko